Mission Creator

[Scratch]

How many people would be interested in playing single player campaigns in Spring?

[Neddie]

I'm down for it.

[Warlord Zsinj]

I think it would really be a great thing for Spring to have. There is a *huge* offline gaming audience.

It would be important that such a thing would be as compatible with as many mods as possible (as in, the 'mission creator' software, not the missions themselves).

[LordMatt]

I think it would be very helpful to spring.

[Pendrokar]

Problem is... We need to find the "Who?" to do it.

[Michilus_nimbus]

Care to explain what it is exactly you mean with mission creator? A mission building program? Someone responsible for building them?

[Pressure Line]

he means a program for building a mission.

[kiki]

yes me +1

Look at the wz2100 missions. They are maybe the best part of the game, almost.

[Michilus_nimbus]

he means a program for building a mission.

In that case, go for it :)

[Treeform]

missions will be cool, but i think best play comes form playing other people any thought. There is some player that only play spring AI's. They should huddle up to come up with some thing like this.

Whoudn't it just be a program like the lobby that would play map after map the only patch needed form spring is the output who won.

[lurker]

Whoudn't it just be a program like the lobby that would play map after map the only patch needed form spring is the output who won.

Autohost interface?
I thought the new tasclient had automatic ladder reporting? no?

[Scratch]

I wouldn't mind doing it, but I haven't even got Spring to compile yet(nor have I tried) but I do have VC++ 6 and use to work alot in it.

I'm thinking it would be pretty simple, basically just have Spring load up a map with preset units on it, with timed/action movements for some units... for someone who knows the spring engine decently it should be pretty feasible, for me though I'd have to learn quite a bit.

How many guys know the spring source code with any familiarity?

I'm thinking -
add a class into Spring.exe, which loads from a file the campaign info into memory, then build a subroutine class into the game loop that sends orders to units according to this data

[lurker]

No need for all of that, we already have enough lua functions in spring that support making missions. What is needed is a frontend and hopefully a builder.

[Pressure Line]

there is already a mission creator, but it has no gui

[imbaczek]

in order to support campaigns, we need:
1) a way to start them that doesn't suck
2) ability to switch maps and restart games without restarting spring
3) _really_ working saves (they seem to mostly work, but there are rough edges), also saves working in intermissions
4) a way to setup Lua additional, per-campaign map rules (but with LuaGaia still working so maps can be reused)
5) a volunteer to do it. manpower is the biggest issue currently.

[Neddie]

I am also interested in a new kind of campaign...

A campaign with an autohost, where players enter after each mission, and then commander share when the next starts, so you have cooperative single player in a real time context.

[Boirunner]

While a campagin would be really cool, I think single missions would be a good first step. All the technology we need for that is available already, no need for engine rewrites.

Just have a map with the Gaia side, controlled by and adapted KAI, and spawn units however you like with LUA.

I can imagine a map where a team of players have to porc in the middle to hold off waves and waves of attackers for as long as possible would be a huge success, and fairly simple to make.

Once we have that, we can always improve on it.

[imbaczek]

I was thinking about a tutorial map with several challenges (say it's BA, could be anything else):

- build a mex and a solar (really, it's a challenge for total newbies)
- get a flash and move it through some checkpoints
- get more flashes and kill some gators
- kill some gollies
- build X mexes in Y minutes
etc. do not even need an AI for that.

[Scratch]

I can see there would be tons of arguing over what a campaign should comprise of, so obviously whats going to happen is individual releases much in the same way maps are released.

Anybody can put together a noob trainer, that should be easy. I think you could go pretty far though, with training for micro skills - say you start with 20 flash and 5 scouts, and your mission is to get through some kind of defense using flash flood, and you are going to lose most of them. Or using rockos. You would add to the challenge by making it part of an actual storyline, saying this is all the forces available to the player for this mission.

So you guys say a GUI is needed, what exactly do you mean. Buttons?

[kiki]

I like neddie's idea, but what would stop game ruiners?

Maybe in addition to a mission, a lua tutorial would be good, and fairly straitforward to make too. Sort of.